Integrated Circuit Having Receiver Jitter Tolerance (&#34;JTOL&#34;) Measurement

ABSTRACT

An integrated circuit capable of on-chip jitter tolerance measurement includes a jitter generator circuit to produce a controlled amount of jitter that is injected into at least one clock signal, and a receive circuit to sample an input signal according to the at least one clock signal. The sampled data values output from the receiver are used to evaluate the integrated circuit&#39;s jitter tolerance.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/665,179, filed on Oct. 28, 2019, which is a continuation of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 15/699,874, filed on Sep. 8, 2017 (issued onNov. 5, 2019 as U.S. Pat. No. 10,466,289), which is a continuation ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/209,494, filed on Jul. 13, 2016(issued on Oct. 17, 2017 as U.S. Pat. No. 9,791,492), which is acontinuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/621,783, filed onSep. 17, 2012 (issued on Aug. 23, 2016 as U.S. Pat. No. 9,423,441),which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/529,320(issued on Oct. 16, 2012 as U.S. Pat. No. 8,289,032), which is anational stage entry of Patent Cooperation Treaty application no.PCT/US08/57455, filed on Mar. 19, 2008 and which claims priority to U.S.Provisional Application No. 60/895,860, filed on Mar. 20, 2007. Each ofthese prior applications is entitled “Integrated Circuit Having ReceiverJitter Tolerance (‘JTOL’) Measurement” and names inventors Hae-ChangLee, Jaeha Kim, and Brian Leibowitz. Each of these prior applications isincorporated by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to integrated circuits and/orhigh speed signaling of such circuits.

BACKGROUND OF THE RELATED ART

An integrated circuit may be evaluated by its tolerance to noise orjitter in a received signal. An integrated circuit's, and or system's,performance may be measured by measuring a number of erroneous bits (orerroneous data values) that occur during the transfer of a particularnumber or bits. This performance metric is known as a Bit-Error-Ratio(“BER”) value.

An integrated circuit's (or system's) BER value may be measured by anexpensive specialized test system. The cost of the test system and thetime required in testing performance of an integrated circuit under avariety of test conditions may significantly contribute to the overallcost of manufacturing the integrated circuit.

FIG. 1 illustrates a test system 100 for testing a device under test(“DUT”) 140, such as a semiconductor integrated circuit (“IC”). Inparticular, test system 100 may be used to obtain a BER value for DUT140 when particular jitter signals are introduced. Test system 100includes a BER test equipment 120, a signal generator 110, a randomjitter (“RJ”) source 108, a sinusoidal jitter (“SJ”) source 109, a sumcircuit 111 and a backplane 130. Signal generator 110, source 108 andsource 109 may be included in BER test equipment 120.

In a test mode, DUT 140 is coupled to BER test equipment 120. One ormore receivers 142 of DUT 140 is coupled to one or more transmitters120A of BER test equipment 120 by way of backplane 130. One or moretransmitters 144 of DUT 140 are coupled to one or more receivers 120B ofBERT 120 by way of an interconnect (such as a cable). Backplane 130 mayprovide a known deterministic jitter (“DJ”) or noise to data signalstransferred from BER test equipment 120 to DUT 140. Backplane 130 mayintroduce inter-symbol-interference (“ISI”) which DUT 140 may encounterin a system when receiving and/or transferring data signals.

Sum circuit 111 sums random noise or an RJ signal and a sinusoidalsignal or SJ signal from sources 108 and 109 and outputs a delay controlsignal. Signal generator 110 outputs a noisy clock signal (or transmitclock/frequency) to transmitter 120A that outputs a data signal inresponse to the data value provided by pseudo random bit sequence(“PRBS”) generator 120C.

A “noisy” clock signal is provided to transmitter 120A (or a clocksignal that has been modulated with one or more jitter signals) toobserve the tolerance of the receivers 142 to jitter (RX JTOL) or BERperformance of DUT 140. For example, data signals are transmitted fromBER test equipment 120 to DUT 140 in response to the noisy clock signal.DUT 140 receives the data and then retransmits the data values (the datavalues may be first stored in a storage circuit of DUT 140) back to thereceiver 120B. A compare circuit 120D then outputs an error signal whenthe data value from receiver 120B does not match or equal the originaltransmitted data from PRBS generator 120C (PRBS generator 120C may alsoinclude a storage circuit to store data values that were output bytransmitter 120A). A number of bit (data value) errors or error signalsper number of data values transmitted/received by BER test equipment 120equals a BER value corresponding to the RJ, SJ, and DJ that corrupt thedata signal.

It is desirable to measure an integrated circuit's noise tolerancewithout the use of expensive specialized test equipment. The eliminationand/or reduction of the expensive specialized test equipment then mayreduce the cost and time in manufacturing/testing an integrated circuit.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

Embodiments are illustrated by way of example, and not by way oflimitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawing. Like referencenumerals refer to similar elements.

FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional test system.

FIG. 2 illustrates the effect of SJ on a data signal.

FIG. 3 illustrates a jitter tolerance graph.

FIGS. 4-8 illustrate circuits having receiver jitter tolerancemeasurement capabilities according to various embodiments.

FIG. 9 is a flow chart to illustrate a method for on-chip jittertolerance measurement according to embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The jitter tolerance (JTOL) of a receiver (RX) is an industry standardmeasure of how much unwanted timing noise (jitter) the RX can toleratewhile achieving a target bit-error-ratio (BER). There are three majorcomponents of jitter involved in JTOL testing—Random Jitter (RJ),Deterministic Jitter (DJ), and Sinusoidal Jitter (SJ). While acontrolled amount of DJ can be introduced into a high-speed data streamby passing the data stream though a channel (e.g. a PCB trace) that addsinter-symbol interference (ISI), the introduction of RJ and SJ oftenrequire expensive equipment. Furthermore, it is desired that the amountof RJ and SJ as well as the frequency of the SJ be variable to fullycharacterize the RX.

FIG. 2 illustrates the effect of adding SJ 201 having peak-to-peakamplitude 203 to a data signal 200. SJ 201 shifts the edges of the datasignal 200 with respect to where the edges would have occurred in timehad SJ 201 not been added. How far the edges are disturbed is related tothe amplitude of the SJ 201. How quickly this disturbance varies isrelated to the frequency of the SJ 201. In this FIG. 2, “UI” denotes a 1unit interval and may represent a nominal time period of a bit or aninterval of time for receiving a data signal in an embodiment.

FIG. 3 illustrates a JTOL graph 310. In this example, at a givenfrequency of the SJ (e.g. 1 MHz), the peak-to-peak (“p2p”) amplitude ofthe SJ is increased until the RX's measured BER degrades to a targetBER. This target BER is typically 10⁻¹² or 10⁻¹⁵ depending on productspecification or industry standard. The frequency of the SJ is thex-axis of the graph 310 and the p2p amplitude at which the target BERoccurs is recorded in the y-axis. This measurement repeats over variousSJ frequencies and generates a curve 312. In this example, the amount ofRJ is constant. Furthermore in this example, curve 311 (“JTOL Mask”)denotes a minimum SJ that the RX must tolerate before degrading to thetarget BER in order to pass the industry specification (e.g. XAUI).Hence, the measured curve 312 being above curve 311 would becharacteristic of a good IC part. This is simply an illustrative exampleand there are other variants of defining JTOL. For instance, anotherspecification may require JTOL measured with the SJ having a fixedfrequency and amplitude while the RJ amplitude is increased. In almostall JTOL evaluation, a means of generating a variable SJ and RJ isneeded for characterizing the performance of a RX.

Embodiments of the present disclosure include on-chip circuits that cangenerate SJ with variable amplitude and frequency and RJ with variableamplitude. Such on-chip circuits eliminate or reduce the need forexpensive specialized test equipment and reduce the time required formanufacturing/testing an integrated circuit.

An integrated circuit (“IC”), among other embodiments, includes one ormore jitter generator circuits to output at least one jitter signal sothat at least one receive clock signal is adjusted (or is noisy). Ajitter signal, such as an SJ or RJ signal, may be input to a Clock andData Recovery (“CDR”) circuit coupled to one or more receivers thatobtain data values and edge values from an input signal. An input signalis sampled by a receiver circuit using the adjusted receive clock signalto obtain a received data value. A stored (or expected/predetermined)data value is input, along with the received data value, to a comparecircuit that outputs an error signal when the received data value doesnot match or equal the stored expected data value. The stored datavalues may be output by a data generator circuit, such as a PRBSgenerator circuit. The error signals may be input to a counter thatstores a count value that represents a performance metric/tolerance ofthe IC, such as a BER value, for a particular jitter signal. A controlcircuit may output control signals to initialize one or more jittergenerator circuits and to synchronize the compare circuit.

In an embodiment, an IC operates in a first and second mode ofoperation. In the first mode of operation (or atest/calibrate/initialization mode), a jitter signal is generated inresponse to a control signal and used to adjust a receive clock signal.Received data values using the adjusted or noisy receive clock signalare then compared to predetermined data values so that a BER value maybe obtained or jitter tolerance may be measured. In the second mode ofoperation (or typical/normal mode), a jitter signal is not generated inresponse to the control signal and data values are sampled or receivedusing a receive clock signal that does not include a jitter signal.

In further embodiments, jitter generator circuits include circuits thatprovide approximate SJ, SJ and RJ signals to a CDR circuit that in turnoutputs adjusted (noisy) receive clock signals to receiver circuits. Acircuit may also be included that provides a frequency offset to atleast one receive clock signal.

In an exemplary embodiment, an IC includes a plurality of receivercircuits coupled to a CDR circuit and one or more jitter generatorcircuits. A first receiver circuit samples an input signal to obtain adata value in response to a data clock signal. A second receiver circuitsamples the input signal to obtain an edge value in response to an edgeclock signal. The CDR circuit includes a phase detector coupled to thefirst and second receiver circuits. The phase detector outputs an adjustsignal (via a K_(i) multiply circuit) to a frequency accumulator thatoutputs a frequency signal. A sum circuit outputs a sum of the frequencysignal and the adjust signal (via a K_(p) multiply circuit) to the phaseaccumulator that outputs a phase signal. A clock alignment circuit, suchas a phase lock loop (“PLL”) or delay lock loop (“DLL”), in the CDRcircuit receives a reference clock signal so that a plurality of clocksignals are output to a phase interpolator that generates the data andedge clock signals whose phase is responsive to the output of the phaseaccumulator. One or more jitter generator circuits, such as a squarewave generator circuit, binary counter and storage circuit or PRBScircuit, output jitter signals to the CDR circuit so that the receiveclock signal is adjusted during a mode of operation that determinesjitter tolerance.

FIG. 4 illustrates a circuit 400 including data/edge receivers 410,clock and data recovery (“CDR”) 420, control 470 and jitter generator430, among other circuit components, according to embodiments. Jittergenerator 430 outputs an SJ and/or RJ signal to CDR 420. In anembodiment, jitter generator 430 outputs a jitter signal havingcontrolled characteristics, such as a controlled predetermined waveshape, amplitude and/or frequency, singly or in combination. FIGS. 5-8illustrate embodiments of providing SJ and RJ signals to a CDR circuitas well as providing a frequency offset. CDR 420 outputs a clock signalthat has been adjusted (or a noisy clock signal) in response to thejitter signal output from jitter generator 430. Accordingly, one or moreof the receivers in data/edge receivers 410 sample data and/or edgevalues in response to one or more clock signals that have noise orjitter added.

In embodiments, data/edge receivers 410 may be included in CDR 420. Inembodiments, two data and two edge receivers sample an input signal tooutput two data and two edge values in response to two data and two edgeclocks output from CDR 420. The four clock signals may be respectivelyoffset by ninety degrees.

More than one jitter generator 430, as illustrated in FIGS. 5-7, may beused to provide different types of jitter signals (DJ, RJ and SJ) at thesame time.

Data values from data/edge receivers 410 may be output to a PRBS errorcounter 450 which may be used in conjunction with another counter (notshown) to record the number of data values or bits received, from whichBER can be calculated. In embodiments, an error signal and/or countvalues may be provided to a register interface (not shown). Data valuesare also output from data/edge receivers 410 to self-seeded PRBSgenerator 440 which outputs a set of expected or known data values toPRBS error counter 450 in response to the sampled data values. A numberof erroneous bits (error count) is obtained by the PRBS error counter450 comparing the sampled data values to the output of the self-seededPRBS generator 440. The error count then may be divided by the totalnumber of bits received to calculate a BER value. A number of total bitsreceived may be calculated in software by multiplying a bit rate(bits/sec) with an observation time (in seconds). A generalpurpose-processing device that includes software, such as personalcomputer, may access the count and/or error values from the registerinterface (or counters) to calculate a BER value in embodiments.

In embodiments, control 470 outputs control signals to jitter generator430 in response to a mode (test/normal) signal. In embodiments, a modesignal indicates whether circuit 400 operates in atest/calibration/initialization mode or typical/normal mode ofoperation. A mode signal may be generated internally in response to adigital value indicating a mode of operation stored in a storagecircuit, or register, or provided from an external source, such as froma programmable fuse or external bus/interconnect. For example, a modesignal may be generated in response to values received from an inputsignal at data/edge receivers 410. In embodiments, control 470 providesconstant values, reset signals and/or synchronization signals to circuit400, including jitter generator 430 in response to the mode signal. Inan embodiment, control 470 may be external to circuit 400.

FIG. 5 illustrates a circuit 500 which is an exemplary embodiment ofcircuit 400. Circuit 500 includes a CDR circuit that includes a phasedetector 520, multiplier circuits K_(p) and K_(i), sum circuits 530 and550, a frequency (“freq”) accumulator (“acc”) 540, a phase acc 560, aclock alignment circuit 570 (such as a PLL/DLL circuit) and a phaseinterpolator 590. A square wave generator 580 that corresponds to jittergenerator 430 outputs a jitter signal in the form of a square wave tosum circuit 530. Data and edge receivers 510 a and 510 b correspond todata/edge receivers 410. In alternate embodiments, other circuitcomponents may be included in circuit 500, such as loop filters,equalizer circuits and de-serializer circuits. In embodiments, portionsof circuit 500 are included in a digital circuit, such as a fieldprogrammable gate array (“FPGA”) that outputs analog values by adigital-to-analog converter. For example, multiplier circuits K_(p) andK_(i), sum circuits 530 and 550, freq acc 540, phase acc 560, clockalignment circuit 570 and phase interpolator 590 may be included in adigital circuit.

In an operation of circuit 500, an input signal is sampled by datareceiver 510 a and edge receiver 510 b, which output data and edgevalues in response to a data clock signal and an edge clock signal,respectively. As described above, more receivers and clock signals maybe used to sample the input signal in other embodiments. Edge and datavalues are input to a phase detector 520 to determine the relativetime/phase between the input signal and the receive clock signals and tooutput an up/down/hold signal to multiplier circuits K_(p) and K_(i). Inan embodiment, an up/down/hold signal is a two bit digital signalrepresented as 1, −1, and 0 in 2's complement binary. Multipliercircuits K_(p) and K_(i) multiply the up/down/hold signals by respectiveconstants (such as a proportional and integral constant) and outputs theproducts to inputs of sum circuits 550 and 530. Freq Acc 540 providesanother input (a frequency signal) to sum circuit 550 that outputs a sumof the inputs to phase acc 560. Square wave generator 580 outputs ajitter signal to another input of sum circuit 530 that outputs a sum ofthe inputs to freq Acc 540. Phase acc 560 outputs a phase signal tophase interpolator circuit 590 in response to the output of sum circuit550. Clock alignment circuit 570 may be a PLL or DLL circuit thatprovides a plurality of clock signals to a phase interpolator 590 inresponse to a reference clock signal. In embodiments, the referenceclock signal may be provided external to circuit 500 or generatedinternally. Phase interpolator 590 outputs at least data and edge clocksignals to data and edge receivers 510 a-b in order to synchronize thesampling of the data and edge values. Inputting a jitter signal into sumcircuit 530 enables at least one of the data and clock signals to beadjusted (or summed with a jitter signal) so that jitter tolerance maybe measured.

Square wave generator 580 outputs a jitter signal in the form of asquare wave signal to sum circuit 530. This disturbance when passingthrough Freq acc 540 becomes a triangle wave. This triangle wave afterpassing through Phase acc 560 emulates approximately an SJ signalcomposed of parabolas. By introducing (or adding) this approximate SJsignal to phase interpolator 590, the receive clock signals are adjustedso that jitter tolerance may be measured. An amplitude and frequency ofthe approximate SJ signal may be determined by inputs to square wavegenerator 580.

In an embodiment, square wave generator 580 includes a binary counter580 a, a selector 580 b, such as a multiplexer, and a multiplexer 580 cfor setting/disabling the test mode. Selector 580 b outputs a selectedconstant value (C, −C, −C, C) as an input to sum circuit 530 in responseto an output from binary counter 580 a. Constant values (C, −C, −C, C)may be stored and output from a storage circuit or register in a controlcircuit, such as control 470. In an embodiment, constant values (C, −C,−C, C) may be provided by an external source, such a controller or testequipment, during testing, initialization or during calibration mode ofoperation. The magnitude of C determines the amplitude of the SJ. Anoutput of binary counter 580 a is timed by a modulation clock. Therelationship between the SJ frequency and the modulation clock frequencyis determined by the 2 bits from the binary counter 580 a that are usedto control selector 580 b. When the least significant two bits are used,the SJ frequency is 4 times slower than the modulation clock frequency.If an eight bit counter is used and the two most significant bits areused to control the selector 580 b, then the SJ frequency is 1/256 timesthe modulation frequency. In an embodiment, square wave generator 580receives a reset signal from the control circuit in order to initiatethe timing of the output of the jitter signal. For example, a resetsignal may zero out or initialize binary counter 580 a. This resetsignal is used so as to avoid un-intentionally adding a frequency offsetin addition to the SJ. Furthermore, the reset signal is input tomultiplexer 580 c to zero out the jitter input during normal operation.Accordingly, the constant values (C, −C, −C, C) determine the amplitudeof the jitter signal and the binary counter output determines thefrequency of the SJ signal caused by the square wave generator 580.

FIG. 6 illustrates circuit 600 which is an exemplary embodiment ofcircuit 400. Circuit 600 includes similar circuits shown in FIG. 5 andoperates similarly to circuit 500. However, circuit 600 includes ajitter circuit generator that includes binary counter 640, storagecircuit 630, multiplier circuit A and sum circuit 610. Storage circuit630 includes 2^(N) stored digital values representing a sinusoidalsignal having predetermined amplitude. Digital sinusoidal values areoutput from storage circuit 630 in response to binary counter 640 thatoutputs the N bit address signal in response to a modulation clock. Notshown is a decoder that uses the N bit address to select one entry fromthe storage at a time. How fast the digital values in storage circuit630 are traversed (output) determines the frequency of the jitter signal(or SJ signal). An amplitude of the digital sinusoidal signal outputfrom storage circuit 630 may be adjusted by applying a multiplier Awhose output is modulo 1UI to the output of storage circuit 630. In anembodiment, the amplitude or scalar of multiplier circuit A may beadjusted in response to a control signal from a control circuit, such ascontrol 470 shown in FIG. 4. Sum circuit 610 sums the output ofmultiplier circuit A and the output of phase acc 560 and provides a sumto clock alignment circuit 570. Accordingly, circuit 600 adjusts atleast one of data and edge clock signals so that BER values forparticular jitter signals having predetermined amplitude and frequencyor tolerances may be measured.

Circuits 500 and 600 are similar in that they can provide close tosinusoidal jitter signals having amplitudes of several UI that may beneeded in tests that use low frequency SJ signals. In an embodiment,circuit 600 generates other types of periodic jitter signals, such assquare wave jitter, by only changing the contents of storage 630.

FIG. 7 illustrates circuit 700 which is an exemplary embodiment ofcircuit 400. Circuit 700 includes similar circuits shown in FIG. 6 andoperates similarly to circuit 600. However, circuit 700 includes ajitter circuit generator that outputs an RJ signal instead of an SJsignal. Circuit 700 includes a PRBS 710 instead of (or in addition to)the circuits that provide the SJ signal in circuits 500 and 600.

An RJ signal is emulated by a PRBS 710 that outputs a predeterminedrandom bit pattern/sequence (via sum circuit 610) to N least significantbits (“LSBs”) of the output of phase acc 560. Sum circuit 610 outputs asum of the output of phase acc 560 and the output of PRBS 710 (N LSBs)to phase interpolator 590. A number of LSBs (N) that will be modulatedby the output of PRBS 710 may be determined by the intended amount ofp2p RJ signal to be added. In an embodiment, a control signal from acontrol circuit, such as control 470, selects which N LSBs of the phaseacc 560 the PRBS 710 output should be summed with.

FIG. 8 illustrates circuit 800 which is an exemplary embodiment ofcircuit 400. Circuit 800 enables evaluation of the performance of anintegrated circuit 801 including circuit 800 in the situation of afrequency offset between a transmitter 810 in another integrated circuit802 and a receiver in integrated circuit 801 without actually causingsuch a frequency offset. In other words, the evaluation can be performedwhen the transmitter and the receiver of the input signal are using asame reference clock. Circuit 800 includes similar circuits shown inFIG. 7 and operates similarly to circuit 700. However, circuit 800includes a constant C that forces a frequency offset at the input ofphase acc 560 (via sum circuit 550) instead of an SJ and/or RJ signal.Circuit 700 includes a constant C instead of (or in addition to) thecircuits that provide the SJ/RJ signals in circuits 500, 600 and 700.Constant C provides a selected frequency offset to an input of sumcircuit 550 in response to a control signal that may be provided by acontrol circuit. The control signal may indicate the amount of frequencyoffset to be added.

FIG. 9 illustrates a method 900 for evaluating an IC by adding jitterinto at least one receive clock signal and/or measuring a BERvalue/jitter tolerance. In embodiments, logic blocks illustrated in FIG.9 illustrate operations/functions of circuits, software or a user,singly or in combination. In embodiments, one or more circuits shown inFIGS. 4-8 carry out method 900. Logic blocks that are not shown may beincluded in various embodiments; similarly, logic blocks that are shownmay be excluded in various embodiments. Also, while method 900 isdescribed in sequential logic blocks, logic blocks of method 900 may becompleted concurrently in embodiments.

Method 900 includes the steps of adding a controlled amount of jitter toat least one receive clock signal (901), sampling an input signal togenerate sampled data values in response to the at least one receiveclock signal (902), and evaluating the IC based on the sampled datavalues (903). In one embodiment, evaluating the IC includes computing abit error ratio corresponding to the controlled amount of jitter. Method900 may further include varying the amount of jitter (904) and repeatingsteps 901-903 with the varied amount of jitter.

In one embodiment, the IC includes a clock circuit for generating the atleast one receive clock signal and the step of adding includesgenerating at least one jitter signal, and injecting the at least onejitter signal into a clock circuit. As discussed above, the at least onejitter signal may be one or more of a substantially square-wave signal,a substantially triangular wave signal, a digital/substantiallysinusoidal signal, an emulated random jitter signal, a constant Csignal, and any other suitable jitter signal. Each jitter signal has acontrollable frequency and/or controllable amplitude, which may bevaried in step 904.

Integrated circuits described herein may be included in various systemsor subsystems such as personal computers, graphics cards, set-top boxes,cable modems, cellular telephones, game consoles, digital televisionsets (for example, high definition television (“HDTV”)), fax machines,cable modems, digital versatile disc (“DVD”) players or network routers.Integrated circuits described herein may be housed in a variety ofdifferent types of packages having different types of external contacts.

In embodiments, conductive paths described herein may include one or aplurality of wires and/or metal traces/regions/signal lines. Multipleconductive paths may replace a single conductive path illustrated in thefigures and a single conductive path may replace multiple conductivepaths illustrated in the figures.

It should be noted that the various circuits disclosed herein may bedescribed using computer aided design tools and expressed (orrepresented) as data and/or instructions embodied in variouscomputer-readable media, in terms of their behavior, register transfer,logic component, transistor, layout geometries, and/or othercharacteristics. Formats of files and other objects in which suchcircuit expressions may be implemented include, but are not limited to:formats supporting behavioral languages such as C, Verilog, and HLDL;formats supporting register level description languages like RTL;formats supporting geometry description languages such as GDSII, GDSIII,GDSIV, CIF, MEBES; and any other suitable formats and languages.Computer-readable media in which such formatted data and/or instructionsmay be embodied include, but are not limited to, non-volatile storagemedia in various forms (e.g., optical, magnetic or semiconductor storagemedia) and carrier waves that may be used to transfer such formatteddata and/or instructions through wireless, optical, or wired signalingmedia or any combination thereof. Examples of transfers of suchformatted data and/or instructions by carrier waves include, but are notlimited to, transfers (uploads, downloads, e-mail, etc.) over theInternet and/or other computer networks via one or more data transferprotocols (e.g., HTTP, FTP, SMTP, etc.). When received within a computersystem via one or more computer-readable media, such data and/orinstruction-based expressions of the above described circuits may beprocessed by a processing entity (e.g., one or more processors) withinthe computer system in conjunction with execution of one or more othercomputer programs including, without limitation, netlist generationprograms, place and route programs and the like, to generate arepresentation or image of a physical manifestation of such circuits.Such representation or image may thereafter be used in devicefabrication, for example, by enabling generation of one or more masksthat are used to form various components of the circuits in a devicefabrication process.

The foregoing description of the preferred embodiments has been providedfor the purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended tobe exhaustive or to limit the embodiments to the precise formsdisclosed. Modifications and variations will be apparent topractitioners skilled in the art. The embodiments were chosen anddescribed in order to best explain the principles of the invention andits practical applications, thereby enabling others skilled in the artto understand the invention for various embodiments and with the variousmodifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. It isintended that the scope of the invention be defined by the followingclaims and their equivalents.

1. (canceled)
 2. A method of operating an integrated circuit, the methodcomprising: with a receiver, sampling, at respective sampling times, asignal carrying a sequence of digital symbols, and to produce respectivedata samples; controllably varying the sampling times so as to simulateeffects of a controlled amount of jitter on the signal; comparing therespective data samples with expected data; and generating datareflecting a bit error rate in the signal in dependence on results ofthe comparing.
 3. The method of claim 2 wherein the method furthercomprises: calculating a bit error rate (BER) value; storing, in aregister, the calculated BER value; and providing the BER value to anaccessing processor.
 4. The method of claim 2 wherein: the integratedcircuit has circuitry to supply a data pattern, the expected datacorresponding to the data pattern; and the data pattern is to match datasymbols of the sequence of data symbols.
 5. The method of claim 2wherein: the method further comprises generating a sampling clock inresponse to one or more jitter control signals; and the sampling clockis to define the respective sampling times.
 6. The method of claim 5wherein the integrated circuit has at least one of a phase locked loopand a phase interpolator and wherein the method further comprisescontrolling the at least one of the phase locked loop and the phaseinterpolator as a function of the one or more jitter control signals. 7.The integrated circuit of claim 2 wherein the signal is to convey timingrepresenting an embedded clock and wherein the method further comprises:generating a recovered clock in dependence on the timing representingthe embedded clock; providing the receiver with a sampling clockdependent on the recovered clock, the respective sampling times beingdefined by transitions of the sampling clock; and injecting timingoffsets into at least one of the recovered clock or the sampling clockso as to simulate the effects of the controlled amount of jitter on thesignal.
 8. The method of claim 7 wherein the integrated circuitcomprises at least one accumulator circuit and wherein: the methodfurther comprises adding values representing the timing offsets to theaccumulator circuit; and the sampling clock is dependent on an output ofthe accumulator circuit.
 9. The method of claim 2 wherein the controlledamount of jitter corresponds to at least one of sinusoidal jitter,random jitter and deterministic jitter.
 10. The method of claim 9wherein: the method further comprises generating one or more jittercontrol signals, the one or more jitter control signals to carry atleast one predetermined pattern of control values; and the at least onepredetermined pattern of values represent the at least one of sinusoidaljitter, random jitter and deterministic jitter.
 11. The method of claim2 wherein the controlled amount of jitter can represent sinusoidaljitter and wherein the method further comprises controllably varying thesinusoidal jitter in terms of each of frequency and amplitude.
 12. Anintegrated circuit comprising: a receiver to sample, at respectivesampling times, a signal carrying a sequence of digital symbols, and toproduce respective data samples; circuitry to controllably vary thesampling times so as to simulate effects of a controlled amount ofjitter on the signal; and circuitry to compare the respective datasamples with expected data and to generate data reflecting a bit errorrate in the signal in dependence on the comparison.
 13. The integratedcircuit of claim 12 wherein: the integrated circuit further comprises aregister and circuitry to calculate a bit error rate (BER) value; theregister is to store the BER value calculated by the circuitry tocalculate; and the integrated circuit comprises an interface to providethe BER value to an accessing processor.
 14. The integrated circuit ofclaim 12 wherein: the integrated circuit further comprises a circuitryto supply a data pattern, the expected data corresponding to the datapattern; and the data pattern is to match data symbols of the sequenceof data symbols.
 15. The integrated circuit of claim 12 wherein: thecircuitry to controllably vary comprises circuitry to generate asampling clock in response to one or more jitter control signals; andthe sampling clock is to define the respective sampling times.
 16. Theintegrated circuit of claim 15 wherein: the circuitry to generate thesampling clock comprises at least one of a phase locked loop and a phaseinterpolator; and operation of the at least one of the phase locked loopand the phase interpolator is to be controlled as a function of the oneor more jitter control signals.
 17. The integrated circuit of claim 12wherein the signal is to convey timing representing an embedded clockand wherein: the integrated circuit further comprises circuitry togenerate a recovered clock; the receiver is to receive a sampling clockdependent on the recovered clock, the respective sampling times beingdefined by transitions of the sampling clock; and the circuitry tocontrollably vary the sampling times is to inject timing offsets into atleast one of the recovered clock or the sampling clock so as to simulatethe effects of the controlled amount of jitter on the signal.
 18. Theintegrated circuit of claim 17 wherein: the circuitry to generate therecovered clock comprises at one accumulator circuit; the circuitry tocontrollably vary the sampling times is to cause addition of valuesrepresenting the timing offsets at least one value held by theaccumulator circuit; and the sampling clock is dependent on an output ofthe accumulator circuit.
 19. The integrated circuit of claim 12 whereinthe controlled amount of jitter corresponds to at least one ofsinusoidal jitter, random jitter and deterministic jitter.
 20. Theintegrated circuit of claim 19 wherein the integrated circuit comprisescircuitry to generate one or more jitter control signals and wherein theone or more jitter control signals are to carry at least onepredetermined pattern of control values, the at least one predeterminedpattern of values representing the at least one of sinusoidal jitter,random jitter and deterministic jitter.
 21. The integrated circuit ofclaim 12 wherein the controlled amount of jitter is to representsinusoidal jitter that is controllably varied in terms of each offrequency and amplitude.